Note: The ports system makes it easy for you to compile applications
for your OpenBSD system. For pre-compiled versions of several popular
applications see README.packages.
The ports/ subdirectory is a checkout of the OpenBSD ports tree. Read
http://www.openbsd.org/ports.html if you know nothing about ports at this
point. This text is not a manual of how to use ports. Rather, it is a set
of notes meant to kickstart the user on the OpenBSD ports system.
Certainly, the OpenBSD ports system is not complete. This is because the
full integration of ports into the OpenBSD environment is a very young
project as of this release. We believe the ports that are provided here are
stable, but it is most important to realize that ports will continue to grow
a great deal in functionallity in the future.
There are two components to the ports system. The first component is the
Makefile, patches, and informational files used to automate the generation
of third-party software. This is found under the ports/ directory. The
second component are the third-party distribution files. These files,
typically compressed tar files, are found in the distfiles/ directory.
The ports/ hierarchy, or at least individual ports from within the
hierarchy, must be copied from the CD-ROM to your hard disk. Another
option is to mount the CD-ROM as the lower layer of a union mount. This
is necessary as the build processs uses the ports directory for working
files. Caution: some ports require over 50 Megabytes of disk space to
build the application.
To copy out the contents of the ports tree to /usr/ports (where it is normally
located) you would mount the CD-ROM with ports on it on /cdrom and issue
a command like:
# cp -pR /cdrom/ports/* /usr/ports/
Or, you could mount the CD-ROM ports tree in a union under /usr/ports like so:
# mount -t union -o -b /cdrom /usr/ports
As we said, ports will be growing a lot in the future. The ports/ directory
represents a CVS (see the manpage for cvs(1) if you aren't familiar with
CVS) checkout of our ports. As with our complete source tree, we will soon
be making ports available via anoncvs. So, in order to keep current with the,
you must make the ports/ tree available on a read-write medium and update
the tree with a command like:
# cd [portsdir]/; cvs -d anoncvsserver.openbsd.org:/cvs update -PAd
[Of course, you must replace the local directory and server name here with
the location of your ports collection and a nerby anoncvs server.]
Again, it's important to see the webpage for specific instructions as this
is a very new service which hasn't yet been ironed out completely.
Finally, despite ports' youth, help is never far. If you're interested in
seeing a port added, would like to help out, or just would like to know
more, the mailing list ports@openbsd.org is a good place to know.